-The Business Standard Govt pushes biofuels again, despite bitter experience The nearly decade-old programme to promote ethanol-blended petrol has failed to make much headway despite continued attempts by the government to get it going. The latest such attempt was last week, when the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) made the very poor decision to force oil marketing companies to mix five per cent ethanol with petrol throughout the country from...

-The Times of India A once-a-week medicine for diabetics — a disease that affects nearly 63 million Indians — could soon become a reality. Studies on diabetes have seen a global upsurge, with the latest data showing that bio-pharmaceutical research companies across the globe are busy developing 221 innovative new medicines. The drugs, which will help around 347 million patients include new therapies that target key abnormalities of pancreatic cells, increase insulin secretion...

-The Economic Times The government must decontrol sugar, lift curbs on trade in molasses and allow proper markets to function in this sector. Ill-informed would-be saviours of farmers like Gen V K Singh oppose the move. They only serve to fatten liquor barons like the late Ponty Chadha and depress farm incomes. As an article by Nidhi Nath Srinivas (ET, November 22) points out, wily politicians use control to make the sugar...

-The Economic Times It has never happened since Independence. May be not even in the last 1,000 years what happened during October 2011-September 2012. India exported 10 million tonnes of rice, valued at around $6 billion, becoming the largest exporter of rice, replacing Thailand and Vietnam, generally the two largest exporters of rice. This is now known to many in rice circles. But what is little known is that in 2011-12, India also emerged...

-The Times of India Stocking up of foodgrains by the government could be one of the major factors for the continuing surge in food prices, warn experts. Latest wholesale price data available on the industry department's website shows that wheat prices are up almost 20% in October compared to a year ago. That's at a time when the government is holding stocks of 42 million tonnes — three times the buffer stock...